Germany is of course the land of the spooky schloß, but there are many other domiciles that Frauen mit tollen Haaren can flee from...
They can flee a handsome Hanoverian crescent...
They can flee the haunted beach house of Heringsdorf Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
They can flee 'cross the Spree from the bust of Nefertiti on Berlin's Museum Island...
They can flee the God-awful medieval banquet they put on for tourists at Marksburg Castle, before the jesters appear and everyone throws up their rotisserie chicken and beans...
They can flee the dismal dungeons of the Aachen Grashaus...
They can flee round and round the fachwerk facades of Dornstetten's Altstadt until they're dizzy...
Or they can just go to the Black Forest and scream at the prices.
Germany is of course a land of rules, and no fleeing is allowed unless gowns are ankle length.
Many German towns now frown upon women with great hair turning up unannounced at local historic monuments and demanding to flee them. These are now routinely locked after 5pm to stop such goings on, although you can apply for a municipal 'erlaubnis zu fliehen' in certain Länder.
Some German women are experimenting with cross-genre fleeing; for example fleeing an Aztec castle in the manner of Lara Croft. I doubt it will catch on, but well done for trying.
German men are also trying to get in on the gothic fleeing scene nowadays, but German women quite frankly aren't putting up with it!
And that's it for tonight's Germanic gothic fleeing guide. Kümmere dich darum, wie du fliehst...
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Today I'm looking back at the career of English painter, book illustrator and war artist Edward Ardizzone!
Edward Ardizzone was born in Vietnam in 1900 to Anglo-French parents. Aged 5 he moved to England, settling in Suffolk.
Whilst working as an office clerk in London Ardizzone began to take lessons at the Westminster School of Art in his spare time. In 1926 he gave up his office job to concentrate on becoming a professional artist.
Today in pulp I look back at the Witchploitation explosion of the late 1960s: black magic, bare bottoms and terrible, terrible curtains!
Come this way...
Mainstream occult magazines and books had been around since late Victorian times. These were mostly about spiritualism, with perhaps a bit of magic thrown in.
But it was the writings of Aleister Crowley in English and Maria de Naglowska in French and Russian that first popularised the idea of 'sex magick' in the 20th century - the use of sexual energy and ritual to achieve mystical outcomes.
Between 1960 and 1970 Penguin Books underwent several revolutions in cover layout, at a time when public tastes were rapidly changing.
Today in pulp I look back at 10 years that shook the Penguin!
Allen Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, aiming to bring high-quality paperbacks to the masses for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. Lane began by snapping up publishing rights for inexpensive mid-market novels and packaging them expertly for book lovers.
From the start Penguins were consciously designed; Lane wanted to distinguish his paperbacks from pulp novels. Edward Young created the first cover grid, using three horizontal bands and the new-ish Gill Sans typeface for the text.
Today in pulp: a tale of an unintentionally radical publisher. It only produced 42 books between 1968-9, but it caught the hedonistic, solipsistic, free love mood of the West Coast freakout scene like no other.
This is the story of Essex House...
Essex House was an offshoot of Parliament Press, a California publishing company set up by pulp artist Milton Luros after the market for pulp magazines began to decline. It specialised in stag magazines sold through liquor stores, to skirt around US obscenity publishing laws.
By the 1960s Parliament Press was already selling pornographic novels through its Brandon House imprint, though these were mostly reprints or translations of existing work. Luros was interested in publishing new erotic authors, and set up Essex House to do just that.
Today in pulp... one of my favourite SF authors: Harry Harrison!
Harry Harrison was born Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925. He served in the US Army Air Corps during WWII, but became disheartened with military life. In his spare time he learned Esperanto.
Harrison started his sci-fi career as an illustrator, working with Wally Wood on Weird Fantasy and Weird Science up until 1950. He also wrote for syndicated comic strips, including Flash Gordon and Rick Random.
Today in pulp... Blade Runner! Let's look back at the classic 1982 movie and see how it compares to original novel.
"It's not an easy thing to meet your maker..."
Blade Runner is based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? However 'inspired' may be a better word, as the film is very different to the book.
In the novel Deckard is a bounty hunter for the San Francisco police. The year is 1992; Earth has been ravaged by war and humans are moving to off-world colonies to protect their genetic integrity. They are given organic robots to help them, created by the Rosen Association.